Bridging the gap between online and offline activism

Online activism needs to work in tandem with a bigger, offline campaign and complement offline action in order to achieve an impact.

This is the third in a series of posts reporting on the day-long “Connect Your Rights!” meeting held in Mumbai in November 2013. The meeting explored topics such as tools to combat violence against women, pornography, sexuality, and freedoms and risks in the online world.

When the news media completely ignored the release of a 2009 fact-finding report on the demolition of Gandhian Himanshu Kumar’s ashram in Chhattisgarh, human rights activist Kamayani Bali Mahabal turned to the Internet for the first time. “The press conference was attended by a room full of reporters. Yet, the next day not a single paper printed the story. I uploaded the video of the press conference online. It got a lot of hits. So, when the mainstream media did not report the news, we resorted to the alternative media,” said Mahabal.